CHAPTER 30
“What brings me here to Honeysuckle?” Red Ingram said, peering through the cell bars at Slash and Pecos. “I came here with the others when gold was found in the quartz veins and slab rock lining the creeks up thisaway. I’d had to turn in my badge over in Utah.”
He reached down to pat his left knee. “Took a bullet to this leg during a bank robbery. Damn near shattered my knee. A sawbones put it back together again, but I can’t ride like I used to, an’ even if I could, Lisa here has to help me into the saddle. Damned embarrassin’.”
Red sipped his coffee.
“When the boom went bust, the town offered me the badge an’ a monthly salary. Figured there wouldn’t be much to do except collect taxes an’ arrest a drunk now an’ then, an’, until now . . . when you two old cutthroats rode into town . . . I was right. I hired Lisa because she wanted the job so bad, bein’ a student of the law as well as bad men, and I needed some way to keep her out of trouble, with all the lowly men in these parts doggin’ her heels with their tongues hangin’ out.”
Lisa flushed and looked away, but a pleased grin twitched at her mouth corners, as though she was embarrassed by a compliment.
Again, Red sipped his coffee and slid his milky gaze between the two incarcerated cutthroats. “That’s what I’m doin’ here. Now, suppose you tell me what you two are doin’ here.”
“An’ who’s that prissy little miss slingin’ drinks in the Honeysuckle?” Lisa asked sharply, flaring her nostrils at the two jailbirds. “She rode in with you. I seen her.”
“Daughter?” Red asked, arching a brow at each former cutthroat in turn.
Slash gave a dry chuff. “Does either of us look purty enough to have fathered that little chestnut-haired filly?”
“The mother would have to be one hell of a looker, I’ll give you that,” Red said.
“You can say that again,” Lisa added, with little of her father’s good-natured ribbing.
“You have your mother’s beauty but little of her charm,” Slash told her.
“You never knew my mother.”
“No, but your old man’s as ugly as a boar hog, and a snake has more charm than you do.”
“Admit it—I rattled you,” Lisa said with a smug smile.
“Let’s get back to the looker in the Honeysuckle,” Ingram said with loud impatience, beetling his red brows.
“We just picked her up along the trail,” Pecos said. “An orphan child. Her old man . . .” He glanced at Slash. “Didn’t she say he was a prospector, Slash?”
“Yeah, yeah, a pick ’n’ shoveler. Died from a cave-in. The poor child’s mother was a doxy from Leadville. Dead. Now, with the father dead, she had nowhere else to go, so she was heading to Denver but got turned around on the trail. She was wanderin’ this way all alone in the big cruel world, so we let her throw in with us . . .”
“For protection from vermin trail thieves.”
“Like yourselves,” Lisa said. “I’m surprised you didn’t rob her blind or worse . . .”
“Well,” Slash said, shortly, “she didn’t have nothin’ to rob, and while we might be vermin trail thieves, our honor is intact, as is hers.”
“How long that will last, with her workin’ amongst your unwashed populace over at the Honeysuckle in little enough cloth to swaddle a newborn baby, I wouldn’t want to wager on,” Pecos added.
Red Ingram walked up close to the cell, narrowing one suspicious eye and arching the other brow. His coffee cup steamed in his big, knotted right hand. “Now for the big question—what are you two doin’ here?”
“Just driftin’ through,” Pecos said.
“No one drifts through Honeysuckle,” the tough, pretty, tangle-haired deputy pointed out.
“We didn’t know that,” Slash said. “So I reckon we’ll be driftin’ back the way we came.”
“You’re here to rob the gold—admit it!” Lisa yelled. “Come out an’ admit it, or I’ll blast you!”
She stepped back and raised the shotgun in her hands once more, rearing back both heavy hammers with ratcheting clicks.
Slash cast the marshal an imploring look. “Leash your wildcat, Red!”
Red said, “Lisa, galldangit—put that scattergun down before you hurt someone!”
“They’re here for the gold, Pa! I’m gonna make ’em admit it!”
“They can’t admit it if they’re running down the back wall yonder. Now put the gun down, child!” Ingram glanced at Slash and Pecos. “I do apologize for her behavior, fellas. She lost her mother when she was shin-high to a tadpole, so she knows only her father’s raggedy ways. I’ve been softening in my later years, but Lisa here is still hardening up.”
“She does need some tempering,” Pecos admitted, eyeing the wild child cautiously through the cell bars.
“You might try a finishing school back East,” Slash advised.
“I’m gonna finish you right here less’n you admit you’re here for the Spanish Bit gold,” Lisa threatened, staring down the double-barrel greener at the prisoners.
Slash and Pecos shared a quick, conferring glance, then returned their gaze to the big twin barrels bearing down on them.
“Lisa, give me that.” Ingram set his coffee cup down and wrapped his big hands around the shotgun.
“No, Pa!”
“Give it here, dammit, before that cannon goes off an’ we got one hell of a mess to clean up!”
Slash and Pecos stepped back from the cell door, flinching, before Red Ingram had finally wrestled the big double-bore out of his daughter’s hands without detonating either barrel. Lisa looked up at the old man, face flushed with fury, her hat on the floor, her thick hair lying in tangles down the side of her head and on her shoulders.
“Pa, you ain’t gonna get nowhere coddling those two old cutthroats!”
“Don’t worry, we’ll have ’em on a diet of bread an’ water pronto!”
“Now you’re just makin’ fun!” Lisa shot back at him, rage flashing in her eyes. “You never wanted to arrest ’em in the first place.”
Red glanced at Slash and Pecos sheepishly. “Well, hell . . . they got federal bounties on their heads. Let the feds handle ’em. I don’t get paid enough to hold two cutthroats as mean an’ nasty as Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid.”
“We’ll take that as a compliment,” Slash said, dryly. He didn’t want to mention that he and Pecos had both received pardons from none other than the president himself. He wasn’t sure why, but something held him back. He’d show those cards only when absolutely necessary.
To his daughter, Red said, “You go make your last rounds now, Lisa. Then head on home to bed. I’ll stay here and sleep in my chair, keep an eye on these two curly wolves. Maybe see if I can’t pry a little more information out of ’em.”
Lisa scooped her hat off the floor and glanced at her father sidelong. “You’re not gonna let ’em go—are ya, Pa?”
“Oh, hell, no. Not since you went and arrested ’em. I’ll send a rider over to Aspen bright an’ early tomorrow morning, have him send a telegram to Denver. I’ll have the chief marshal send a couple of deputies for these two raggedy-assed owlhoots. They’ll be doin’ the midair two-step inside of two weeks.” Red placed a hand behind his head, pantomiming a rope, and made violent strangling sounds, sticking out his tongue and puffing out his cheeks.
Lisa smiled joyfully. “You promise?”
Red placed a tender hand on the girl’s cheek and beamed down at her. “Would I lie to my purtiest daughter?”
“I’m your only daughter.”
“Oh, that’s right—I’m so old I forget!” Red laughed. “Run along now, girl. I’ll watch ’em tonight. You can watch ’em tomorrow night. You know I sleep better sittin’ up in a chair, anyways.”
“All right, Poppa.” Lisa glanced once more in disdain at the two incarcerated cutthroats, then placed her Greener in the rack by the door, blew her adoring father a kiss with her hand, and left.
“That’s quite the deputy you got there, Red,” Pecos said, staring at the door through which Lisa had disappeared. The soft thumps of her footsteps dwindled off down the street.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Red said, pouring himself another cup of coffee.
When he’d set the pot back on the stove, he took a sip, then looked at his two prisoners again. “If you ain’t here for the Spanish Bit gold, what are you here for?”
“We never even heard of the Spanish Bit until your deputy mentioned it,” Slash lied.
“Yeah, what is the Spanish Bit, anyways?” Pecos asked, making the question sound innocent enough, though that was the question burning in both his and Slash’s minds.
Red took another sip of his coffee and eyed both prisoners suspiciously. “Gold mine. The first one in the area, and the last one. The only one left. When the poor quality of the gold in this area, not to mention the scarcity of it, drove everyone else out, the Spanish Bit remained. A big mine connected to a big ranch. They send gold out of these mountains once every couple of months. They send it with a whole passel of heavily armed guards. So far . . . no one has been fool enough to make a play for it. Let me warn you fellas that even back in your heyday, the Spanish Bit gold would have been out of your league.”
“No point in gettin’ nasty, Red,” Slash said.
“Hell, we’d like as not have made a play for it back in our prime,” Pecos countered, “but seein’ as how we don’t have a gang anymore, and we’re old—leastways, Slash is old—it’s probably a mite out of our reach. You’re right.”
Slash turned to the town marshal. “Come on, Red. You know we’re not here for the Spanish Bit gold. We’re just coolin’ our heels, that’s all. Why don’t you let us go? We’re not worth the trouble. I know it’ll hurt your daughter’s feelin’s all to hell—seein’ as how she’s countin’ on seein’ the feds play cat’s cradle with our necks an’ all—but maybe, to make it up to her, you could buy her a pony instead.”
All three men had a good laugh at that.
Pecos wiped tears of humor from his eyes and said, “Open the door, Red. It’ll be our secret.”
“I don’t know, boys,” Red said, stepping back and studying the floor as though for a course of action. “I’m gonna have to ponder on it. I’ll sleep on it an’ get back to you in the mornin’. What I should do is exactly what I said—send for the marshals. But seein’ as how you’re no longer runnin’ with your gang, an’ you’re damn near as old as I am—”
“Hold on, now,” Slash said. “I don’t think we’re that—”
Slash elbowed him hard, cutting him off.
Slash drew a mouth corner down.
“. . . and likely not even worth the expense of a trial and a hangin’,” Red continued from where Slash had interrupted him, “I’ll study on it overnight and get back to you tomorrow.”
He yawned and set his empty coffee cup on his desk. “I’ll be hanged!” he said, stretching. “It ain’t all that late, but I’m sooo tired, I reckon I’m gonna fold my old bones back into this chair and pick up where I left off when you boys an’ my daughter so rudely interrupted me.”
Pecos yawned. “I think I’m about ready to head that way myself.”
He sagged down onto one of the cell’s two cots and tossed his hat onto the floor.
“I reckon I might as well, too, then,” Slash said. He sat down, kicked out of his boots, lay down on the cot, rested his head on the flat, musty pillow that smelled of too many other men’s sweat, and drew the single wool blanket up to his chin.
“ ’Night, fellas,” Red said, and blew out the lamp.
“’Night, Red,” Pecos said.
“Yeah, g’night, Red.” Slash yawned, squirmed around on the unfamiliar cot, getting comfortable, and closed his eyes.
The night was so quiet, even here at the heart of town, that Slash and Pecos both felt themselves slip right off into deep sleep despite the uncertainty of their futures. The night was less than restful, however.
Slash woke up after what he thought wasn’t much over an hour of shut-eye to Red’s raucous snoring. Slash had shared camp with some loud woodcutters before, but Red had those old roarers beat by double and maybe even three times. The town marshal of Honeysuckle snored so loudly he made the floor shudder. He sounded like a dragon sitting right outside the cell door, getting ramped up to burn another village.
“Jumpin’ Jehosophat, Red,” Slash yelled, “stuff a sock in your mouth!”
Red stopped snoring long enough for Slash to fall back asleep, only to be awakened not much later by Pecos yelling, “Slash, for godsakes, roll your skinny-assed carcass over! You’re snorin’ even louder than Red was!”
Slash hadn’t been back asleep for more than another half hour before Pecos started bringing the building down with his own snoring. He and Red both yelled at him to turn over. When Pecos hauled his big body over, making the cot creak dangerously, and lay facedown, merciful silence once more fell over the jailhouse.
But not for long.
All night, the three unfettered snorers played round-robin, trying to get at least one and sometimes two of the others to wake up and try another position. Slash was almost glad to see the gray wash of dawn in the jailhouse’s lone front window. Red Ingram woke himself up with another crow-like snore and lowered his feet to the floor. He rose creakily, snorting and hacking phlegm into the sandbox beside his desk.
“Ah, God,” he said. “Ah, God . . .”
He tramped, sort of wobbling on his hips, out away from his desk, his boots drumming on the hard-packed earthen floor. He snagged a key ring off a ceiling support post by the cold woodstove and jabbed a key into the cell door’s lock. He twisted the key and swung open the door. He beckoned broadly, still wobbling like a landed sailor after months at sea, and hacked more phlegm from his lungs.
“Out,” he croaked, swinging his arm again, as though hazing cattle through a chute, and jerked his chin toward the office’s front door. “Out with ya both. Go on—haul your freight!”
“What’s goin’ on?” Pecos asked. He’d been half-asleep when the door had squawked open. Now he lifted his head from his pillow, blinking.
Slash stomped into his boots and scooped his hat off the floor. “Ain’t sure, but I think we’re gettin’ the bum’s rush.”
“Out—both of ya!” Red croaked again, blinking his sleepy eyes. “Get out! Out! I ain’t a young man. I can’t afford another night’s sleep like that one. A man my age needs quality shut-eye, by God!”
“All right, all right, Red,” Pecos said. “Just let me get my boots on!”
“Out! Out! Out!”
“Hurry, partner,” Slash said, “before he changes his mind.
“Out now an’ to hell with both your cutthroat hides!” Red bellowed.
Stomping into his second boot, Pecos glanced at Slash and said, “I don’t think he’s gonna change his mind. It looks like he’s plumb tired o’ the both of us.”
“Well, let’s pull foot before his wildcat daughter shows up for work,” Slash said, hurrying out of the cell and tramping toward the office door. “I for one am right allergic to twelve-gauge buck!”
“Out of here and out of town!” Red yelled as Pecos, setting his hat on his head, hurried to catch up to Slash. “Out of town right now. Before sunrise! Don’t dally, an’ don’t show your faces in Honeysuckle again or you’ll be settlin’ up with my daughter and her double-bore!”
Tucking his shirttails into his pants, Pecos jogged to catch up to Slash. Falling into step beside the shorter man, he said, “What do you think of that?”
“I think you an’ your snorin’ wore out your welcome. Mine, too, I guess.”
“My snorin’?” Pecos laughed without mirth. “Hell, I thought you an’ ole Red was gonna bring the house down!”
“Oh, shut up!”
“Why didn’t you draw the derringer? I know you still had it.”
“Oh, I would have if it came to that. But first I wanted to hear more about the Spanish Bit. I wanted to hear a little more about Red and his wild-assed daughter, too.”
“You think they’re legit?”
“Who knows?”
“Well, what’re we gonna do now?”
“What can we do?” Slash said. “I reckon we’d best hightail it out of town unless we want to face Lisa Ingram again an’ that twelve-gauge she’s so damned fond of.”
“But . . . but what about the gold?”
Slash stopped in front of the hotel. “I said we’re leavin’ town. We’re not givin’ up on the gold. No—not by a long shot. Let’s fetch our gear from room ten—if old Syvertson hasn’t already hocked it, that is—an’ take a ride deeper into the mountains, see if we can’t locate the Spanish Bit Ranch and Gold Mine.”
Slash turned to start up the steps of the hotel’s front veranda.
Behind him, Pecos said, “You think we’re gonna find stolen gold at a gold mine?”
“I know it don’t make sense,” Slash said, trying the hotel’s front door.
Locked.
He glanced at Pecos and said, “It don’t make sense now, but I’ll be damned if it won’t soon.”
“If we live till soon,” Pecos grumbled, glancing warily back in the direction of the stone jailhouse. Another thought occurred to him. “What about Hattie?”
“What about her?”
“We can’t just leave her in town all alone.”
“Ah, hell,” Slash said. “That purty little Pink can take care of herself.”
Slash rapped loudly on the hotel’s front door.